Tokyo Demons: Book 3, Chapter 6, Part 2

Jo already–poignantly–felt like a liar, but now he also felt like a cheating hypocrite. After refusing to let Ayase run after Touya, he was chasing his own ghost in the midst of a gangster firestorm.

But he’d seen him. Within the crowd of frightened civilians and under the cacophony of horns and gunshots, Jo had seen a slight boy in a cap slip into an alley…leaning on a crutch as he dragged one leg in a cast.

Jo rocketed into the long alley, panting as he slowed in the narrow corridor. A few paces ahead of him, facing the opposite end, the boy in a cap hobbled toward the street.

KADO! Jo yelled in his head.

The boy stopped.

Slowly, he turned.

Jo didn’t know what he was expecting. But a deep chill laced through his veins as Kado finally faced him.

Kado looked…different. The usual creases and bags under his eyes had melted away, replaced with a dark, even focus that felt more unnerving than stable. He wore the cardigan and jeans Jo had last seen on his lifeless body, and his white medical cast had been replaced with an elaborate black one. Kado’s upgraded single crutch had an ornate handle that wrapped around his elbow.

And that innocuous cap, like a gray newsboy hat… Jo couldn’t place it, but it somehow made his stomach churn.

Kado’s beady eyes caught Jo’s gaze like a tractor beam. The boy cleared his throat.

“Hello, Oda-san.”

You’re really alive.

It felt like a stupid thought to have after everything that had happened, but it was nevertheless the first thing to rise in Jo’s brain. Seeing wasn’t believing anymore–but he was seeing this, and believing it.

Jo swallowed.

“A-are you alone?” he asked.

Kado’s mouth twitched slightly. “Never.”

“I mean… Where are your partners? Where’s your backup? I thought you were working with…” When Kado’s face hardened, Jo stopped himself from saying the word. But he could, at least, think it this time.

And where are your guards? Jo added silently, his eyes breaking from Kado to sweep across the empty alley. One of Zayd’s recent texts had confirmed that his “invisible” Kiri bodyguards had been transferred to Kado–to aid him in the mysterious hunt for Touya.

“Nn.” Kado tilted his head, the action unnerving on him. It almost looked like a wistful shrug. “That’s over the phone, and through the tracker they put on me. With all the things I could do to their minds, they refuse to be physically near me.”

Jo’s eyes widened. “Then you’re chasing Touya through the city…by yourself? On crutches?”

“I’ve never felt this strong in my life.”

Words died in Jo’s mouth. He stared at Kado for a few long seconds, his brain frantically trying to overlay a memory on top of this boy. A quiet figure, in the shadows, wearing a gray newsboy cap…

Ochi.

Detective Ochi.

That was where Jo had seen the hat before. That day he’d been arrested and thrown into an interrogation room–Ochi had been wearing civilian clothes, including an unassuming gray cap.

“The officers were about to go after Touya when Nakajima suddenly came on the frequency and told them she was handling it.”

Ochi, Nakajima’s loyal lap dog.

“Wh-what did you promise her?” Jo croaked, déjà vu rolling through his stomach like a stone. “What did you promise them to get them to work with you?”

Kado shifted on his crutch. “I promised them Touya.”

“That can’t be all they wanted! Did they make you join them? Do they own you now?!”

“No,” Kado said firmly. “I think I’m much too old for them to want to recruit.”

Jo couldn’t fathom what that meant.

Kado looked past Jo for a moment, at the alley opening Jo had come through. Two fingers unfurled from the fist at his side.

He slowly dragged them across his jeans, left to right.

As Jo tensed, Kado shifted on his crutch. “Go back to the others,” he said as he started to turn. “Or they’ll follow you into this alley.”

“W-wait!”

Kado paused.

Jo gritted his teeth. This wasn’t enough. This wasn’t enough. The foreboding was thick as fog in that alley, and warning alarms blasted inside his skull. This felt too final. It felt wrong.

“You…have to come back after this,” Jo snapped, his voice trembling. “Ayase and Sachi have to know that you’re alive.”

The line of Kado’s jaw softened slightly.

“I mean it, Kado! This destroyed them and I have to lie to their faces!” Frustration bubbled over inside Jo, tightening every muscle in his body. His sneakers scraped against the pavement as they launched him forward; he stalked the last few meters to Kado, stopping an arms-length in front of the boy.

“Why do they have to think you’re dead, and I have to know the truth?! I don’t even know how I can help you! What do you, or the people behind you, even expect me to do?!”

Kado leveled his gaze. “You’re already doing it.”

“That’s not a goddamn answer, you cryptic son of a–”

“Oda-san.” Kado let out a breath, a faint rasp at the edge of it. “It’s not about what you can do, but who you are. I want you to be yourself.” He pressed his lips together for a moment. “There are so many unknowns in this plan, and I know how little I can actually control. When things turn dangerous, Sachi makes the kindest choice, Ayase makes the bravest choice…but you make the smartest choice. So that’s what this mission needs. You. With them.” His crutch creaked as he leaned forward.

“You belong with them,” he said with eerie finality.

Something lodged in Jo’s throat. When he tried to reply, the thoughts fizzled away, chased out of his brain by the powerful lock of Kado’s eyes.

Almost in realization, Kado broke the eye contact. He deflated slightly, cutting the tension between them.

Then he sighed and stared at the ground.

“Sachi agreed to this plan,” Kado murmured, a new hint of regret behind the words. “But, by design, he can’t remember that part.” He swallowed. “I wasn’t going to do this without asking him first, not after…everything else. He’s in pain now, but he’ll be okay.”

Then, slowly, Kado’s brow creased in some emotion Jo couldn’t place.

“But I didn’t give Ayase that choice. I know it’s cruel. Does she…” He hesitated. “…miss me?”

Jo’s jaw dropped. He was suddenly shocked stupid, his brain not processing the weird, unfamiliar look on Kado’s face.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Jo cried. “Of course she misses you! Weren’t you listening to me?! How could you possibly question that, fuck!”

“Nn.” Kado’s mouth sank. “I guess I just wanted to hear it.”

The lunacy of the mundane–what, insecurity?!–threw Jo back to real life, and his danger senses kicked in. He whipped his head around just as his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“They’re coming,” Kado agreed. “So I have to leave.”

“…”

“Take care of Sachi,” Kado said quietly. “And Ayase…” He trailed off. “Never mind.”

Jo cursed, the whiplash of all his emotions twisting into anger. “You’re coming back to them,” he repeated, this time an order. “When you’re done with your…insane plan, you’re coming home. Promise me, Kado.”

Kado looked up from the concrete. He took a breath and shifted, his crutch creaking under him.

And leaned against Jo, his thin arm snaking around Jo’s neck.

“Thank you,” Kado whispered in his ear.

Jo flinched instinctively, the rasp against his eardrum shooting a shiver up his spine. But the hug was over before he could process it, Kado’s slight body creaking back again on the weight of his crutch.

“Go.”

Jo’s phone buzzed once more, an insistent warning in his pocket. He clenched his jaw and turned to run back the way he’d come.

As his sneakers pounded against the concrete, he glanced back–once.

Kado was already hobbling away.

To be continued in Book 3: Chapter 7, Part 1.